


Our Home

by elfenphoenix



Series: My Home is with You [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Childhood Friends AU, Klance Week 2017: Welcome Home, M/M, klance, part three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:44:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfenphoenix/pseuds/elfenphoenix
Summary: Allura clears the team for a visit back to Earth to see their families, and Lance decides to invite Keith to come back home with him. It's not like Keith has anywhere else to go. And besides, it's probably the closest thing Keith's ever had to a home, anyway.





	Our Home

Keith had been a bit apprehensive about leaving the Castle of Lions to visit Earth, but one look at Lance’s face upon hearing Allura say they could, and Keith knew he wouldn’t be able to say no.

“You should come with me!” Lance insisted, again grabbing Keith’s hand out of excitement, a gesture Keith was fairly sure was involuntary, but didn’t dislike.

“To meet your family?”

“Yeah! My mom probably remembers you, and I have a lot of younger siblings now that you haven’t met. It’ll be great!”

“But… it’ll be your first time seeing your family in… I don’t know how long we’ve been out here. Won’t I just be in the way?”

“Nah, it’ll be chaos either way, so I doubt you’ll make much of a difference. So come on! Please?”

Lance’s gaze was steady, urgent, insistent. Keith wasn’t used to being looked at like that. Especially not by Lance. He wasn’t used to somebody _wanting_ him to be a part of something– not because they needed him, or that he was useful, but just because they wanted him to be there.

“You sure you want _me_  to go?” Keith asked, still a bit uncertain. “Not Pidge or Hunk? You’ve known them longer.”

“Nope. It has to be you. Oh, but if you don’t wanna come, I won’t force you…”

“I’ll go!” Keith blurted, his face reddening. “I mean yeah. Sure. If you really want me to.” 

Lance’s smile spread, brightening his face in a way that made Keith’s heart go crazy. But he’d never tell Lance that. Finding out that they’d been childhood “friends” had spurred mixed emotions in Keith’s head. It was nice to find the missing puzzle piece, but he wasn’t sure he liked the picture he saw when he stepped back. It meant that this irritatingly beautiful boy had been his “friend” once, a long time ago. And a “friend” he would stay.

Being a friend was a lot better than being a worst enemy, though. And that was part of the problem. Keith didn’t want to ruin that delicate balance it had taken him so long to reach by taking things one step too far and making Lance hate him again.

But, like an idiot, he was pulled headfirst into Lance’s eager happiness. He, Keith Kogane, had fearlessly driven a hovercraft over a cliff, fought an evil witch with nothing but a double-bladed magic sword, sliced apart dozens of Galra drones, chased a ship through an asteroid field, walked through the belly of a giant planet-eating worm, and fought the enemy of the known universe, but did he stand a chance against the boy with the blue eyes?

…Nope.

And so to Earth they flew inside the Blue Lion (one Lion was already conspicuous– two would only be more so), headed to Lance’s once-small hometown just off of Veradera Beach, on the huge island of Cuba.

They landed in a pretty dense section of mountain trees, and Keith only hoped that no well-meaning hikers stumbled upon the giant mechanical cat and started blurting things to the press.

“I’ll be gone for a little while, so stay good while I’m gone, ‘kay?” Lance said to the Blue Lion, giving its paw a pat as he passed. Then he turned to Keith. “Well, you ready?”

Keith shook his head. “Not really. But I don’t really have anywhere else to go, so… why not?”

“Right. So let’s go, then!”

* * *

As they walked through the town, Keith looked around, trying to find something– anything– familiar. But nothing really struck him as memorable. There was Lance, and that was all.

“It’s changed a lot since we were kids,” Lance announced, as if he’d been reading Keith’s mind. “The pizza shack’s still there, though. At least, it was there the last time I was here.”

They didn’t stop in the middle of town, instead heading straight to Lance’s family home.

 _This_ , Keith remembered. It helped that the small terra-cotta building looked the exact same. The same brightly painted walls, the same patches on the roof, the same plants hanging in the windows. It was a battered, old-looking house, but one that looked like it was filled with love and care, just like the family that occupied it.

“ _Mamá, estoy aquí!”_ Lance shouted, heading up to the front door. “ _Hay otra persona conmigo!”_

Keith had no idea what Lance said, but he liked it when he spoke Spanish. It sounded both extremely strange, and yet entirely natural, all at once.

The door swung open, and an ancient-looking woman glowered down at them. Well, up at them, but the intensity of her glare made her seem like she was above them.

Lance said something in Spanish, and the old woman didn’t respond, just continued to glare. But then suddenly she pulled Lance into her embrace, closing her eyes and sighing in relief, tears leaking out of her eyes.

A little girl leaned out of one of the windows, his eyes widening when he saw Lance. “Mom! Lance is back! Lance is back!”

“You’ve told me that ten times already, and I’m not falling for it again,” a woman’s voice scoffed from inside, in perfect English. 

“No but this time he’s _really_  here!” the girl argued, disappearing back inside the house. “ _Abuela’s_ hugging him!”

The old woman let go, then ushered Lance inside. Oh– that’s right. She was Lance’s grandmother. His “Abuela”. 

There was chaos inside, just like Lance had said there would be. Children shouting in an unintelligible mix of English and Spanish, plates crashing to the ground, and what sounded like a chair getting knocked over. Then there was a smacking sound, and children spilled out of the doorway, looking a bit frightened. One of them, about twelve years old, looked up at Keith as they passed by.

“Are you our brother’s friend?” he asked, glancing back at the doorway.

“Um, yeah. I’m Keith.”

“Well what are you waiting out here for?”

“I don’t know if I’m welcome.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Of course you are. If you’re our brother’s friend, then you’re welcome. _Los que nuestros son suyos.”_

The boy ran off down the street, calling out after the other kids, leaving Keith alone again. He hadn’t understood that last part, but he thought it was a good thing. Probably.

He was about to step through the doorway when a young woman appeared in it– Lance’s older sister.

Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw him. “You look familiar.”

“Um… I’m Keith. I stayed with you guys when I was really little. You… probably don’t remember.”

Her eyes widened. “KEITH?! Oh my– come in! Come in! Mother will be so excited to see you!”

And she was. Only moments after he walked in the door, Keith was surrounded by hugs, called “mijo” by Lance’s father (which he later found out meant “my son”), and asked more questions than he even knew how to answer. How did he meet Lance again? Had he found a family to stay with? Was he eating well? Was he happy? 

Pretty soon he was eating dinner with the entire family, including Lance’s four younger siblings (apparently many of the children that had left the house earlier hadn’t actually been biologically related), surrounded by laughter.

Lance told them all crazy, exaggerated stories about their adventures, while also toning down some of the truly life-threatening bits. He talked a lot about Keith, too, making him sound a lot cooler than he actually was, like some kind of hero. Actually, it was the first time he’d heard Lance speak so highly of him.

And the Mcclain family ate it up. Well, actually, it was Álvarez, but Lance used his mother’s last name while he was in the States.

Just like when he was five years old, Lance’s mom kept refilling Keith’s plate, insisting that he was a guest.

When he was little, he hadn’t really realized it, but now that he was an almost-adult, Keith could tell that the family wasn’t exactly rich. And yet they were so generous to him, a boy they barely knew, both now and in the past.

All of the socialization, mixed with all of the chattering in Spanish that he didn’t understand, left Keith pretty drained, though. After a while, he excused himself, heading out to the beach for some quiet.

He sat down in the sand, looking up at the many colors flooding the sky as the sun began to descend. He’d seen a lot of sunsets in a lot of places, both on Earth and elsewhere, but he had to admit, he liked this one the most–the way the orange-and-pink reflected in the blue-green water, filling everything around him with those warm, glittering colors.

Lance plopped down next to him with a sigh. “Oh man, I missed this more than _anything_.”

“What, the ocean?” Keith asked.

“Nah. Just… feeling _home_ , y’know?”

“I wouldn’t really know,” Keith replied, then bit his lip when he realized how harsh it had sounded. “I mean… I don’t really remember having any place I really lived ever feeling like a ‘home’. I think the Castle of Lions is the closest I ever got.” He paused, looking at Lance through the corners of his eyes. “But I think if I had to pick a place on Earth I’ve been to that felt most like home… I think this might be it.”

Lance grinned, so brightly it rivaled the setting sun. “And you haven’t even seen the best parts.”

Keith glanced at him again, then blushed and muttered to himself, “no, I’m pretty sure I have.”

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing!”

“Hey, don’t do that!”

“Look, the stars are coming out,” Keith pointed out, changing the subject.

Lance looked up, leaning back on one hand and pointing with the other. “What, that one? That’s just Venus.”

“How do you know?”

“When I was a kid, my _abuelo_  used to take me out here with a telescope… I think he took you, once, too.”

Keith thought about it, then smiled to himself. “Yeah, he did.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching as the sun finished disappearing behind the horizon and the stars winked on into the night sky, one after another.

“D’you think one of those stars is Arus?” Lance asked. “Or Taujeer, or Olkarion?”

Keith shrugged. “Dunno.”

The night air was getting a bit chilly, and Keith shivered, tempted to scootch just a bit closer to Lance and his body heat, but resisting.

Instead, Lance put an arm around his shoulders, pointing upward with the other. “There’s Leo! Can you see it? A Lion, just for us.”

Keith swallowed, forcing his face into a scowl. “I don’t think it has anything to do with Voltron.”

“Shhhh… let me have this one,” Lance urged, putting a finger over Keith’s lips.

It was warm, next to Lance, even though they were right next to the water, surrounded by the cool night ocean breeze.

Keith let his eyes drift closed, his head to find a place on Lance’s shoulder. He pretended to be asleep, so that if it made Lance uncomfortable, he could just brush it off as an accident.

But Lance didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he just seemed to shift a little closer, as if to make Keith more comfortable.

It was true– this was the place Keith felt most at home, whether it was here on Earth, or back on the Castle of Lions. Probably, in the morning, the two of them would be back to bickering rivals, but for now, he could believe that it would be possible to belong somewhere. To be at home… wherever Lance was.

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I haven’t practiced my Spanish in like three years, and I’m not sure how similar or different Mexican and Cuban Spanish are (I was taught mainly Mexican Spanish, because my teacher figured it was most relevant), so please give me the benefit of the doubt if some of this is imperfect.


End file.
